He is used to playing the funny fat man, but now Seth Rogen has turned into the super hero. The Knocked Up actor has trimmed down his waistline to shoot the lead role in The Green Hornet. Seth first began losing weight last year for the role, but rewrites, director and casting changes have all had the project on ice until now. The actor, who also wrote the screenplay, was filming in a rock quarry in Los Angeles with Jay Chou, who plays his trusty sidekick Kato.

The Green Hornet is a big screen version of the 1960s TV show, which starred Bruce Lee as Kato, and also stars Cameron Diaz as a reporter and Britt Reid’s (aka The Green Hornet) love interest. But despite looking much slimmer, trimmer and healthier for the role, Rigen revealed he felt like a ‘sell out’ for losing the weight.

‘I’ve been eating better and training – and hating myself for it. I feel like a sell out, I feel lame, I feel like a guy I would make fun of,’ he said.

He said he lost weight by eating well and exercising with a personal trainer.

‘I go there real early in the morning,’ he added. ‘He tells me what to do, and I go home and go to sleep, and it’s like it never even happened.’

He needs to be fit for the role as in an interview last April, he claimed he would be doing all his own stunts.

The Green Hornet, who happens to be the Lone Ranger’s grand-nephew, is a newspaper publisher by day who fights crime by night accompanied by Kato. He drives a car with advanced technology called Black Beauty, and has brilliant hand-to-hand combat skills. In the TV series he was armed with a sonic blast weapon called the Hornet’s Sting, and in many versions he carries a gun that sprays knock-out gas. The film, directed by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s Michel Gondry, takes ideas from both the original radio programme in the 1930s, the 60s TV show and comic book series.

Source: Daily Mail

Advance Review: The Simpsons opens Season 21 with an episode written by the duo that brought you Superbad, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Word got out some time ago that the pair would be writing an episode of the series, and when I first read this I was quite excited. Certainly they would be able to bring a fresh voice to the two-decade old series. Now that their episode has arrived, does “Homer the Whopper” live up to these expectations? Not exactly. Instead of bringing in something fresh and new, the writing partners deliver something familiar: a solid, funny, good old episode of The Simpsons.

“Homer the Whopper” feels like an episode from Season 8 or 10, which makes complete sense. Rogen and Goldberg are self-proclaimed fans of the series, so it’s no surprise that they would take their cues from the stronger eras of the show. The majority of the episode pokes some serious fun at the entertainment industry at large and more specifically the film industry. But things start with a comic book referencing geek fest. The first act, in fact, is the strongest portion of the episode and if it could be graded alone it would likely be very close to a ten.

It starts with Bart and Milhouse taunting Comic Book Guy on his home turf and discovering his secret comic book “Everyman.” We’re taken inside the pages of “Everyman” and learn that this mild mannered citizen has the ability to absorb the powers of every superhero whose comic book he touches. Thankfully, the episode plays on this set up with actual superheroes and not some generic ones created for the show. This gives the jokes an added wink to fans of the genre. When Comic Book Guy learns that Bart and Milhouse really liked the comic, he decides to self-publish and the character becomes a hit. The episode really uses this situation to great comedic effect. There are a number of comic book, sci-fi and general geek references, from jokes about superhero products (look for the Hulk hands) to summer franchise blockbusters. There are sight gags galore, which I don’t want to give away, so keep your eyes peeled and your TiVo remotes at the ready. One in particular to watch for is the giant movie posters outside of Ginormous Studios.

The success of the comic leads to a movie deal, and through an interesting course of events, Homer is chosen for the role of Everyman. From here, the episode falters a bit as the focus shifts from the geek world to Homer’s struggle to get into and stay in shape for the hero role. Writer Rogen also guest voices Homer’s Hollywood trainer. This portion of the episode is clearly inspired by Rogen’s personal experience as he has shaped up to star in the latest version of The Green Hornet. Unfortunately, these are the weaker moments of the episode. This is likely due to the fact that we’ve seen Homer struggle with his weight countless times, and Rogen’s trainer, though funny much of the time, will likely never be remembered as a classic guest role. But they are still able to find a few new angles with the weight jokes, so it’s not a complete loss.

“Homer the Whopper” starts incredibly strong and then settles in for a familiar, funny ride. Some of the ideas might not exactly be new (certainly we’ve seen our share of comic book jokes and movie star aping in episodes like “Radioactive Man” and “Beyond Blunderdome”), but Goldberg and Rogen do add freshness to the proceedings. This is a fun way to kick off the anniversary season.

Having just kicked off its production last week, “The Green Hornet” was already hit with an on-set mishap over the weekend. E! News reported that the filming of a car chase scene has gone awry when a stunt driver, who was reportedly manning the Black Beauty car, lost control of the car and crashed into the front of the Creative Artists Agency’s headquarters.

When the set accident took place, some of the film stars, Seth Rogen, Cameron Diaz and Edward James Olmos, were shooting a shootout before the offices of the Hollywood’s premiere talent agency. They were not involved in the incident, and while a portion of the driveway wall was damaged, the stuntman escaped without injury.

E! News also reported that following the mishap, the film crew’s construction department were seen working all day making repairs. In the meantime, a representative from Sony Pictures has commented on the incident, describing it as “a minor, noninjury accident”. The rep further claimed that production was not delayed by it.

If one film property has been stuck in a quagmire, it’s The Green Hornet. A live-action film version of the classic pulp character has been rumored to be in development since the early ’90s. It seemed like the movie was finally going to come together when it was announced in 2004 that Kevin Smith was working on a screenplay that he planned to direct, with Jake Gyllenhaal in the title role and Jet Li backing him up as Kato.

After Smith’s project fell apart, Sony Pictures announced on June 4, 2008, that, through Columbia Pictures, it was developing a feature film with funnyman Seth Rogen stepping in to wear the green fedora. Hong Kong superstar Stephen Chow was announced as the director of the project and was expected to also play Kato, but he dropped out due to creative differences. Recently, some other cast members have been added, including Nicolas Cage and Cameron Diaz. Most recently, Edward James Olmos announced at the Chicago Comic-Con that he will be appearing in the film.

However, if you listen to Rogen, The Green Hornet might never get made. While promoting his latest film, Funny People, Rogen joked:

I’ve decided we’re never gonna make [The Green Hornet]. We’re just going to promote it for the next 10 years. It’s really hard to make a big movie … especially in this economy.

Some in Hollywood, it seems, just can’t let go of past political hopes – or at least want to use their films to continue pushing their political preferences. In Funny People, the new movie from writer/director Judd Apatow, which opened July 31, a character played by Seth Rogen wears a 2004-era “Vote Kerry” T-shirt with an artwork outline image of 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

I caught the scene with Rogen sporting the T-shirt in the promotional clip played during this past Monday’s re-run of the July 20 Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien on which the star of the film, Adam Sandler, was a guest. The video clip is when, “George asks Ira to kill him.”

The wardrobe choice may not have been Rogen’s, but it would match his political influences, at least judging from this quote attributed to him on IMDb’s bio page for the Canadian-born actor:

My mom’s a social worker and my dad works in non-profit organizations. But they seem very radical in American terms, embracing a form of socialism that really doesn’t even exist here. I mean, where I come from, communism is not a terrible word.

IMDb’s plot summary for Funny People: “When seasoned comedian George Simmons learns of his terminal, inoperable health condition, his desire to form a genuine friendship cause him to take a relatively green performer under his wing as his opening act.”

—Article written by: Brent Baker, Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center

Homer Simpson has an interesting year ahead. Al Jean, the executive producer of “The Simpsons,” explained the season will include a Sept. 27 episode co-written and starring Seth Rogen (“Funny People,” “Knocked Up”).

Rogen is the voice of a comic book fan who creates an everyday superhero who gets the power of any comic book he touches. “The comic book guy sells the [movie] rights and gets casting approval and decides to cast Homer as the hero of the film,” said Jean.

Rogen plays the personal trainer who gets Homer to lose weight, then quits in the middle of filming. “Homer gains weight right back and the movie makes no sense,” said Jean, who explained Rogen joins Ricky Gervais (“The Office”) as the only celebrity fans of the show who have written an episode.

Jean added that when celebrities say they want to add their voices to an episode, the writers keep it in mind in case they think of something appropriate.

James McAvoy will star in “I’m With Cancer”, a comedy about the life of cancer survivor Will Reiser being produced by Seth Rogen. Announced in October, the film is an adaptation of the autobiographical novel “I’m With Cancer.”

Reiser is a producer on VH1’s “Best Week Ever” and a former contributor to HBO’s “Da Ali G Show.” His spec script talks about his struggle with a diagnosis at age 25 and how he used humor to get through it. Reiser’s script landed on 2008’s Black List as one of the best unproduced works in Hollywood. McAvoy will play Reiser and Rogen will take a supporting role. Nicole Holofcener is directing the production that starts January 2010.

It is a little surprising to see this is still moving forward after Funny People didn’t do well in theaters. Even though cancer is supposedly a taboo subject I thought the movie was funny, especially when it was dealing with Rogen and cancer rather than Sandler’s home-wrecking epiphany.

I know people will see “cancer” and “comedy” and immediately be up in arms, but after my own experience with the condition I believe there’s nothing particularly offensive about remembering a survivor’s story and telling some jokes. Besides, with talent like McAvoy on board it doesn’t look like this will be a wacky screwball comedy. Maybe Rogen is taking a step into more serious material. It’s going to be a tough sell to the general public, but I’m giving this one a chance.

Seth Rogen’s next project has him playing Britt Reid, aka the Green Hornet, fulfilling the comic-book fan’s dream to make a superhero movie, even if it’s about the least super of the breed. “He’s just a guy. He has a sidekick, Kato,” says Rogen, who wrote the script with Goldberg. “ What we are doing is making a hero-sidekick kind of relationship movie that’s framed in this giant, action superhero movie.”

Directed by Michel Gondry, his co-stars are Cameron Diaz and Nicolas Cage, but what really excited him was that a few months ago he found himself having lunch with the Marvel Comics maestro Stan Lee. “If you told me one day I’d be having lunch with the guy who created X-Men, I would not believe you,” Rogen says.

I ask the newly fit and trim Rogen if he did his own action scenes. He makes a muscle, raises his eyebrows and laughs, as if to say, ‘What do you think?’ Seems the everyman rises again, which is why, of course, laughs will ensue.

Eric Bana found his Funny People co-stars so amusing he was given a nickname on set: the giggle monster. The Aussie actor returns to his comedy roots in the latest movie by director Judd Apatow (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up) about a group of stand-up comedians. True to its title, the movie stars some of the funniest people in Hollywood, including Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and Leslie Mann, who is married to Apatow.

It was Mann who bestowed the title `Giggle Monster’ on Bana when he struggled to contain his mirth.

“He would laugh every time Leslie was serious,” Apatow said during a visit to Australia to promote Funny People. “My wife is very funny but in ways she does not understand, so when she’s acting very serious it looks kinda crazy, and he would laugh a lot. There was one moment where, in the middle of a take, he kept laughing so Leslie, in character, slaps him in the face. But really I think she just wanted to hit him so he would stop laughing.”

Australians may fondly remember Bana as the mullet-headed Poida, but in recent years Bana has made a name for himself internationally for dramatic roles in Munich, The Other Boleyn Girl and Star Trek.

Funny People is his first foray into comedy in many years – though he was name-checked in a joke in Knocked Up. Apatow said he was impressed when he watched some of Bana’s early work on sketch comedy shows like Full Frontal and The Eric Bana Show Live.

“I always thought his story was very interesting, that he started out doing stand-up and sketches and became this serious actor,” Apatow said. “So when we were thinking about who could play the part we remembered that we goofed on him in Knocked Up and we thought maybe that’s a perfect way to go. We were looking for an original take on an obnoxious businessman.”

It was Bana’s idea to make the character an Aussie, and it’s the first time he has been able to use his real accent on a movie in about 10 years.

But it was Apatow who suggested they use Bana’s obsession with AFL club St Kilda for some laughs.

“I just asked him what are you interested in and I’ll put that in the movie and he said `I love footy’,” Apatow explained. “He is obsessed with footy, if his team loses he cries, and he’s proud of the fact he cries. So I said, `that’s hilarious’. I don’t think he ever understood why I thought it was funny, because he takes it very seriously.”

Funny People will be released nationally on September 10.

The latest Judd Apatow film Funny People has been a trending topic on twitter.com for the last couple days. Many celebrities have even commented on the film.

Diablo Cody:

Just got back from Funny People at the Dome. I liked it a lot. Jason Schwartzman!

Jon Favreau:

Haven’t seen Funny People yet, but definitely want to. Those guys can use my name as much as they want. I’m a fan.